Ten Miles in Six Minutes.

Manawatu Herald, 30 April 1892, Page 3

Ten Miles in Six Minutes.

» *- An American correspondent writes : —" Locomotive running wild ; clear the main track !" was the message sent along the Pennsylvania and Poughkeepsie Railway the other day. The triiarit locomotive had been standing on the main line at Blairstown, when a goods train, coming up behind, ran into it. The throttler was thrown wide open by the shock, and befoie anyone could leap on board the. engine it was tearing down the track at a rate of a mile a mi'.iute. The small knots of people at the various stations heafd a rush* ing roar and saw a flash of burnished brass as the engine flew by. A passenger train from New York, on the and Western road, was almost due at Portland, and evei'Voiie <>X| ectdd a collison on the tracks, which tre used jointly by two roads; but the runaway reached the Poughkeepsie road crossing, and was switched on to thafroad two minutes before the Snsquehanna train came along. The switch was turned half a minute before the engine reached it, otherwise nohing would hive saved the passenger train T~he truant engine 1 dash d along the !ong briJge at Portland at the rate of 75 miles an hour. Steam began failing on the heavy gradient of ibe bridge, the engine slackened its speed and a man leaped on board ft;om another engine, climbed over the coal to the throttle, and stopped the runaway. The run from B'airstown to Portland, ten miles, hal been made in six minutes.